Far Off, a Symphony
by DetectableNinja
Summary: On a good day, Warren can keep the loneliness lurking within him at bay. He can stop himself from crying. But today is not a good day. One-shot. (Warning: Depression/Mental Illness)


**A/N:** **An exploration of the darker, lonelier side of Warren I've observed, particularly in episode 4 (although there are no spoilers, don't worry!).**

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Far Off, a Symphony

by DetectableNinja

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At night Warren tries not to cry and most of the time it works. It is not a conscious feeling, that urge to curl up into a ball and let the tears flow—nothing so fortunate, so easy to acknowledge, as that. Instead, it creeps around inside his skull, content to subtly, but constantly, remind Warren of how alone he really is. Sometimes Warren can even feel it _physically_ : a tingle in the back of his head, under the tangled mass of his brown hair, or a certain extra weight added to the arm he raises in class. On bad days, even his lips seem like stubborn, heavy things as he tries to curl them into a smile—although he almost never fails to do so.

Almost.

But tonight, in spite of everything, Warren somehow manages this feat as the light of his computer screen paints his face in cold, harsh colors. Max posted a photo online. Warren leaves a comment before the smile has a chance to fade: _Far out, Mad Max! Even better than the Hubble! As always :P._

He lingers for a few more seconds on the photo, almost as if his darting eyes were searching it for his salvation from this empty, dark room—a bit of warmth, whatever that lightness was whenever he saw Max, or talked to her. It's a feeling that didn't come easy to Warren, but over the past few months, since he met Max, she became more and more... _concrete_. He isn't sure if, as he's heard so often as a gibe, he's _in love_ with her. In fact, half the time he feels compelled to deny himself that descriptor—he's seen enough movies to know not to fall into that archetype. But where everyone else seems so far away and cruel—blurry and paying him no notice, or jeering at him when they do—Max is up close. She's actually there, and Warren can see her.

 _She can't see me though, can she?_

The thought flashes by in an instant, and suddenly that tingle in the back of his head is all over, wrapping around the sides of his skull, kissing his temples with shocking cruelty, and digging in just under his eyes. Warren is suddenly aware of a strange sourness in the pit of his stomach that he can feel start to rise. He quickly shuts his eyes and takes a few deep breaths while his fingers scroll away from the picture, so that when he finds himself looking at the screen again he sees a post from some person he can't remember ever adding on this site, and he feels like Warren again. For better or worse, he can't tell.

Exiting his browser, Warren goes to the movie he's had playing but hasn't really been paying attention to. He forgets its name for a moment, but then suddenly it occurs to him— _Melancholia._ For the first time in a couple hours, Warren actually hears the sound of his own voice as he laughs wholeheartedly. "How much more cliche could that be?" he says, forgetting that he's alone. The silence throws him off and he looks around, the better part of him expecting Max or even one of his other few friends to be there. But then he notices the clock and that it's 11:30 and _of course_ no one was here, why would there be? It's not like any of the boys like him any more than the girls. That sign he hasn't bothered taking down—what does it say? _Beta Phag Alert_?—makes that all too clear. Warren doesn't necessarily know if they're the kind of people he exactly _wants_ as friends, of course. But, seeing them laugh, talk, _see_ each other, it seems to Warren like they're attuned to some radio broadcast, or some beautiful music that is oh so far away and Warren can only faintly hear. Despite his rational self, some part of Warren deeply believes, deeply _knows_ , that to be liked, to be popular, is to dance to that music, out in the sun and away from dark rooms and harsh computer screens.

"Fuck it," Warren mutters with a chuckle, shaking the thought from his mind. He turns off _Melancholia_ and stares at his desktop for a bit. Finally, Warren makes a decision and stumbles to his feet from his chair. He knows he doesn't get enough fresh air—maybe that's the key tonight. He takes his phone from his desk and checks it before putting it in his pocket. No notifications, no texts. Not from Max, not from anyone. Warren knows better than to be disappointed, but that doesn't stop it from settling in every time he sees an empty phone screen. He wanders over to the door of his room and, like an automaton, takes a jacket off the hook and puts it on before opening the door.

The halls of the dorm seem unusually hot, even with the jacket he's wearing, but Warren doesn't take it off. Instead, he turns around without much thought and studies the sign that those assholes from the Vortex Club put on his door. He's seen it so many times since it's been up and hasn't bothered to take it down yet, but tonight he's struck by something in particular: how the eyes and the mouth on his photo have been cut out. Warren finds this oddly appropriate as he starts to realize exactly how quiet he's been lately, despite Max. He's still talkative, of course, like always—but Warren doesn't really talk much about himself, does he? The Vortex Douches have gotten louder, started to shove him around a bit—but all Warren's done is shut down.

"Huh," Warren half-says, half-sighs to himself, wondering idly if he should maybe text Max about it. _No_ , he finally resolves. _Stupid idea._ He turns around and starts to make his way toward the front door, rounding the corner before suddenly coming face to face with Nathan, just entering the building. Warren spends about two seconds too long searching Nathan's face and trying to decide if he should say something before Nathan makes that decision for him.

"Hey," Nathan says curtly, maybe even friendly, before suddenly turning on a dime and asking sternly, almost demanding, "What are _you_ looking at, Graham?"

Warren does his best attempt at a smile, too tired to come up a witty, good-natured comeback. The smile comes out crooked, so Warren only says softly, "Nothing."

Nathan snorts, a condescending smile creeping over his own face. "Good," he says, and walks past Warren, shoving him a bit as he passes. "Now stay out of my way," he adds with some strange mixture of aggression and understanding before disappearing around the corner.

Something inside Warren attempts to form the word _alright_ , but it fails. As much shit as Nathan has put Warren through, and as angry as he is for it, Warren can't help but feel a deep exhaustion when he thinks about how nice it would be to just be friends with him. Be noticed by him. Warren wishes that he didn't have to be so alone, but knows he does, knows that the rift between him and these other guys is almost like a force of nature. Or...something like that. He doesn't let the thought go on. Instead, Warren checks his phone one more time, feels his heart sink a bit more, and rushes outside, going down a few steps before plopping himself down hard.

The stair is cold against his butt in the autumn night air, and it sends a shiver up from his tailbone, along the ridges of his spine, right into his brain. It takes Warren a few minutes and a few chattering teeth to get used to it. But, when he finally does, he crosses his arms tightly and looks out at the thicket of trees that surround the campus. At this time of night, they're only dim shadows—amorphous blobs of dark matter that somehow stand out individually and blend together all at once. Warren wonders how the first settlers of Arcadia Bay didn't go mad at night, trying to start a community in such darkness. Unless you were right there next to someone, there's no way you'd be able to really see any of their features—they'd get so easily lost among the trees, among the dark, among the birdsong and crickets. But even then, _even_ being right there, less than a yard away from someone, how could you ever feel anything but totally alone down there on the forest floor? It was a question that Warren had always found academically interesting—talking with Ms. Grant about sociological responses to darkness and loneliness throughout time—but now, the forest seems eerily close, living at the front of Warren's mind.

Warren's phone vibrates, yanking him away from the trees, and he pulls it out. It's Alyssa. _Hey._ The corner of his mouth jerks upward instinctively.

Almost without warning, the metaphor breaks down and Warren finds himself thinking about Max, and his other few friends like Alyssa, and the many people who ignore him, and the Vortex Club, and Nathan, and he wonders how ever he'll be able to feel like he actually exists. It occurs to Warren that he can't say he loves Max because it's inaccurate: he _wants_ to love her. He _wants_ to love his friends, and the people for whom he's a faceless nerd, and the assholes in the Vortex Club, and yes, he wants to love Nathan, too. God, how he wants to love them, and God, how he wants to be loved. To be _seen_ , and to be _heard_ , and all of the things that people like Max or Nathan can do and have and see and hear and say.

Still looking down at his phone, a second text from Alyssa comes through. _Do you have the HW for Grant, nerd? :)._

And then it happens. On a good day, when that sinking feeling in the back of his head is nothing more than an almost imperceptible itch at the base of his brain-stem, Warren would know that Alyssa was his friend, and that _nerd_ and that _:)_ only proved that.

But today isn't a good day, and so Warren knows that that closeness will never happen. That understanding he thought he saw in Nathan wasn't really there, not really, and Alyssa calling him a nerd was just another insult, another wall between him and any real friend, and the smiley sealed the deal, because Warren knows now that he's a loser, good only for homework reminders and to be the poster child of the Other, the ugly alien must be reminded of its ugliness and alienness constantly, lest it forgets.

He also knows that he's powerless to stop it. The best that he can do is sit out here at night and imagine ghosts of friends walking around on the sidewalk in front of the stairs. All that's left for someone like Warren are ugly signs and being shoved out of the way. _Melancholia_ and comment threads are where he's allowed to exist, not the arms of a girl or the arms of a boy. Warren feels that sadness flood back once more, feels that sourness in his stomach, that tugging at his eyes, and this time he can't stop it. He starts to cry, loudly, almost hoarsely letting the sadness spill out onto the wood of the stairs and the concrete of the pavement.

Warren receives another text, but he doesn't care who it's from, or what it says.

From the girls' dorm, a violin begins practicing _Ave Maria_ , but Warren can barely hear it.


End file.
